India had 36.2M credit cards, 846.7M debit cards in January 2018

In January 2018, the number of debit cards increased to 846.7 million, with 4.23 million new cardholders, while a total of 36.24 million credit cards were in operation, with the addition of 0.7 million cards, according to the Reserve Bank of India. Between January 2017 and January 2018, India added some 7.39 million credit cards and 28.72 million debit cards.

Card usage spiked during the months of November 2016, December 2016 and January 2017, following the demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes. The unavailability of cash forced cardholders to use them. But since February 2017, both debit card and credit card usage have been range-bound. In June 2017, debit cards were down by 86.2 million to 793.83 million, shaving off most of the increase that demonetization brought in.

The number of transactions using credit cards grew by 9.4% year-on-year, while it declined by 9.1% for debit cards for the 12 month period ending January 2018. In January, the total number of transactions through credit cards were 129.8 million, while the figure for debit cards was 298.6 million.

Total amount transacted through credit cards — which was Rs 41,437 crore in January 2018 — increased by 27% in the 12 month period ending January 2018. Amount transacted through debit cards decreased by 17% during the same time. In January 2018, Rs 40,761 crore were transacted through debit cards. Note in the chart above that the amount transacted using debit cards had surpassed credit cards in November 2016, but by May 2017 the amount transacted through credit cards and debit cards became almost the same, and now credit card transactions are slightly above debit card transactions.

Total amount transacted through credit cards went down by Rs 413 crore in January 2018, while amount transacted through debit cards rose by Rs 300 crore.

Average amount transacted per transaction using credit cards — which is an indication of how much amount people are willing to spend in one transaction — increased 15.8% between January 2017 and January 2018. For debit cards, it declined by 8% during the same time period.